


Beasts Within

by Heart_Seoul_Soshi



Category: Descendants (Disney Movies)
Genre: Beast Ben, Dragon Mal (Disney), F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-02
Updated: 2017-09-02
Packaged: 2018-12-22 21:49:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11975721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Heart_Seoul_Soshi/pseuds/Heart_Seoul_Soshi
Summary: They weren't meant to be.  Mal knew it, and Ben knew it.  They made their peace with it.  They just forgot to account for Evie.  And a beast.  And a dragon.





	Beasts Within

**Author's Note:**

> from an anonymous request on tumblr

An exhausted Evie was in such a hurry to just get back to her dorm and crash that she didn’t even notice the soft lamplight spilling out from the crack underneath the door, and as such, she was entirely surprised by Mal’s presence in the room when she unlocked the door and stepped inside.  Mal was on her bed, cozy in pajamas as she sat with her knees hugged to her chest.

  
“Hey,” she greeted.  The tv was on, and she absentmindedly watched.  
  
Evie’s perfect eyebrows furrowed, very confused as to why she was seeing Mal here, already retired for the night.  
  
“…Hi, M.  You’re back early,” she noted, shutting and locking the door behind her.  "What happened to your date?  Ben’s king stuff come up again?“  
  
”…Not exactly.“  
  
Evie lobbed her purse onto her bed, let the gears turn and whirl inside her head for a second, then turned back to Mal with folded arms.

"Why do you have Evasive Face?” she questioned.  
  
“Okay, one, I don’t have a face specifically reserved for evading, and two—”  
  
“Why do you have Evasive Face?”  
  
A defeated smile glided into place on Mal’s expression accompanied by an equally defeated little laugh.  She couldn’t get anything over on that girl.  
  
“…Ben and I broke up,” she announced.  "Or I broke up with Ben, whatever you want to call it.“

Alright, so that definitely wasn’t what Evie was expecting to hear.  Her feet shuffled on their own to carry her to Mal’s bed, sitting down on the edge.

”…Mal, what happened?“ she softly asked, unknowingly shifting into "Best Friend Sympathy” mode.  
  
Mal shook her head, and that defeated smile of hers began to turn more genuine and easygoing.  
  
“Don’t be sorry, E.  It was a long time coming, we both agreed.  Pretty sure ‘drifting apart’ is the phrase Ben used.”  
  
Despite being told that “Best Friend Sympathy” mode wasn’t necessary, Evie’s eyes still held a shade of sympathetic softness.  
  
“…Yeah, I guess you two haven’t had much time to yourselves in a long while.”  
  
“It’s not even that.  It’s…all of it, right from the very beginning.  Him falling for me under a love spell, becoming king, me failing to be a lady of the court, Uma and The Isle…that was a lot of crazy, Evie.  The kind of crazy where in the middle of it you realize 'this isn’t what I thought it would be’.  We didn’t fit as well as we thought we did.  Maybe if there was no magic, no mischief, maybe if there was an alternate reality where I wasn’t a villain kid and he wasn’t royalty, we would’ve fit better.  But we both agreed the best thing to do was to just let go and walk away.  Really, it’s okay.”  
  
Evie’s fingers crept across the covers and took Mal’s hand.  
  
“ _You’re_  okay?” she prodded.  
  
“I am.”  
  
“He loved you.”  
  
“He did.”  
  
“And you loved him.”  
  
“…I think I may have thrown those words out there a little bit sooner than I meant to,” Mal sheepishly admitted.  "Six months versus sixteen years…I’m really still trying to learn what love is.  Maybe I got close to learning with Ben, but…there’s no hard feelings between us.  And honestly?  Pretty relieved I won’t have to deal with any of this royalty stuff anymore.  Being the king’s girlfriend is like, an actual  _job_.“  
  
Evie laughed, and like she was waiting on permission, hearing the musical sound in the air made Mal let her laughter slip as well.  
  
"And the last thing you need is to go into politics,” Evie giggled.  
  
“You’re telling me.  Really, Evie, I’ll be just fine…but if you had some chocolate-covered strawberries you were saving as comfort food for an occasion exactly like a breakup, I wouldn’t say no.”  
  
Evie’s smile beamed, and she stood up, keeping ahold of Mal’s hand and standing her up right alongside her.  
  
“Shall I escort you to the kitchen, former Lady Mal?”   
  
Mal curtsied playfully.  
  
“If you would kindly do the honors, Councilor Evie.”  
  
So, that had happened.  The fairytale life of the King and the VK was no more, and to say word traveled fast at Auradon Prep was a major understatement.  
  
Jay and Carlos came bursting into the girls’ dorm that next morning looking ready to get armed to the teeth, demanding to know what the “royal rat” had done and just how many ways from Sunday Mal wanted them to pound him.  It took both Mal and Evie together to calm the big brother act, explaining how the breakup was mutual and rooted in nothing more innocent than sheer incompatibility.  
  
There was the inevitable awkwardness, of course.  For better or for worse, Ben and Mal had been a constant in each other’s lives for seven and a half months, and that sudden absence left behind holes no matter what.  Somewhat more bearable was the fact that Ben spent the majority of his time running the kingdom from the stately royal palace across from the school, it wasn’t like Mal had to deal with the mortification of bumping into him in the halls after Goodness class.  
  
She meant what she’d said to Evie; breaking up with Ben had been clean and splinter-free.  She didn’t miss him, she didn’t long for a magic undo button, but as a human being, her predisposition towards equilibrium meant she  _did_  long for those holes to be filled.  
  
But thankfully, part of an Isle kids’ upbringing was learning from day one how to fill the various holes within them.  
  
It started out slowly, so slowly and gradually that Mal didn’t even notice.  Hallway walks and locker talks with Ben were beginning to be replaced by hallway walks and locker talks with Evie.  In just a matter of weeks Mal was more used to having  _her_  surprise her at her locker than she was ever used to having Ben.  
  
“I’ve been thinking,” Evie started, peeking her head around Mal’s open locker door.  
  
“That’s dangerous,” Mal retorted with a sly smirk.  
  
“I’ve been thinking about what a terrible friend I am.  I haven’t walked with you to a single class this week.”  
  
“You’re a busy girl.  You’ve got a business to run, classes to balance, brand new Isle kids to chaperone; doesn’t really leave you with a lot of time to dawdle with me in the hallways.”  
  
“And yet I’ve also been thinking I should make it up to you somehow.”  
  
Mal slid her books into the locker, closing the door and meeting Evie’s resolute face.  
  
“Okay, walk with me to lunch,” Mal said.  
  
“Can do.”  
  
A different type of equilibrium, this time.  Not so much restoring what was empty, but returning to what originally was.  All that time ago, when the VKs first descended on Auradon, lunch with Evie was replaced by lunch with Ben.  And now, drifting towards that equilibrium, lunch with Ben reverted back to lunch with Evie.  
  
“Are you gonna eat that?” Jay had been eyeing Mal’s plate while she and Evie talked like a small boy eyes the cookie jar.  
  
“The kitchen has seconds,” Mal cooly informed him.  
  
“Fourths,” Carlos corrected, having watched in mild horror as Jay ate and ate.  
  
“The kitchen has seconds, but you’re closer,” Jay explained.  
  
Evie and Mal exchanged a look with each other, earth meeting meadow.  Somehow, they made a silent deal together, with Mal giving in and pushing her plate over to Jay while Evie slid her own plate over so they could share.  
  
“He’s a growing boy,” Evie sighed, handing a French fry over to Mal.  
  
“Unfortunately.”  
  
Little touches with Ben were replaced by little touches with Evie as the weeks marched on.  
  
Formally resigned from being a Lady of the Court, it was with great relief that Mal dropped the over-the-top pleasantries, the asinine decorum, the fork to the left or the right or heck, upside down and diagonal for all she cared, because if the food was all ending up in the same place she  _really_  did not care to play musical forks.  Formally resigned from being a Lady of the Court, Mal was happily enjoying being able to let herself get a little messy again.  She was mid-sentence with Carlos at breakfast when Evie wordlessly reached over with her finger to dab away the cinnamon sugar on Mal’s bottom lip, where it lingered from the morning’s French toast.  
  
There was the way Mal returned the favor one evening, when a hard day at school led to Evie falling asleep beside her in the middle of movie night.  Mal had just let her rest, seeing no need to disturb her, but with the end of the movie came Mal’s attention having nowhere else to go but over, coming to a stop on Evie’s face.  It made her think that Princess Aurora had wrongly and unfairly claimed the title of “Sleeping Beauty” over twenty years ago.  Her hand, curious, and suddenly with a mind of its own, brushed its finger lightly, gliding slowly over the curve of Evie’s lips.  Not once did Evie stir.  The artist in Mal was mesmerized.  The human being in Mal, drifting ever deeper in search of that equilibrium, was both surprised and not to find that the holes in the shape of the young king could be filled by the shape of a young princess.  
  
And then, something she didn’t really have enough time to get used to before the royal castle of cards came tumbling down; kisses from Ben were replaced by kisses from Evie.  
  
“…Mal, you realize everyone else is long gone, right?” Evie’s feather-light chuckle mingled with the sounds of crickets in the air.  
  
Everyone, both player and spectator, had indeed left the Tourney field more than half an hour ago, just as the sun was starting to go down, and now the lights around the bleachers shone only on Mal and Evie.  Not one to linger, Mal of course had intended for the two of them to just leave after the game ended like everyone else, but the sunset had caught her attention, and on another whim of the artist in her she stayed behind to watch as the sky cycled through its nightly medley of colors.  
  
Dusk now, where just a band of reddish orange glowed like fire on the horizon while a dark blue canvas nestled above it, flecked with stars.  Evie had been watching as they twinkled, peacefully enjoying the show with the musical accompaniment of the crickets.  
  
“Mal?”   
  
“I know, everyone else is gone.  That just makes it better, nature’s light show all to ourselves.”  
  
“We definitely didn’t have this on The Isle,” Evie shook her head.  
  
“…There’s a lot we have here that we didn’t have on The Isle,” Mal’s words carried more meaning than Evie realized.  
  
Or, maybe she did realize.  
  
“…Didn’t we?” Evie quietly asked, finally tearing her attention away from the sky to focus on the one star that had been shining the brightest for the past month and a half.  "I told you a lot when we went back to The Isle, after all.“  
  
"Rescuing Ben,” Mal remembered.  
  
“And rescuing you.”  
  
Evie sat up from where she’d been leaning back against the row of bleachers behind her.  
  
“But then again, Ben told you a lot _here_ ,” she said with a sigh, gesturing to the Tourney field.  
  
“Sure, under the influence of a love spell,” Mal also remembered, laughing at how ridiculous that all seemed now.  
  
Her laughter was cut short when Evie moved in close.    
  
“…Maybe he and I have that in common.  Only…I think that this time, the magic here is real.”  
  
“…I think it is too.”  
  
Evie closed the space between them and rested her forehead against Mal’s.  
  
“Mal?” Evie’s eyes fell shut.  
  
“…Yeah?”  
  
And there were no words left to say.  
  
And for a girl who had seen next to nothing of the world, Mal knew for a fact just then that there was absolutely nothing in it softer than Evie’s lips against hers.  
  
Equilibrium.  In which two forces find balance.  In which a hand fitted perfectly into another hand, lips caressed another pair of lips, and after a lifetime of wandering lost in so many shadows, Mal and Evie found their place together in the light.

* * *

“I don’t see why I can’t open my eyes,” Evie was going for annoyed, but the not-so-hidden tinge of enjoyment canceled that right out.

“You don’t really get the concept of this whole 'surprise’ thing, do you?” Mal made time to joke in between making hawk-like scans of the forest floor, ensuring Evie didn’t trip as she led her along.  
  
“I do, but I also appreciate the concept of 'arriving in one piece’.”  
  
“You’ll get there in one piece.”  
  
The gasp Evie let out when she finally opened her eyes was worth all the strain on Mal’s in searching out every stray branch and rock to avoid.  
  
“M…” she breathed.  
  
Crystal clear water with an emerald tinge, deep forest on all sides, the constant rushing of a waterfall, and the elegant ruins of what was once a beautiful rotunda.  
  
“…Is this the Enchanted Lake??” Evie guessed.  
  
Mal nodded.  
  
“M, it’s…so much more amazing than I ever imagined it could be,” Evie gushed.  
  
“You and the lake have that in common.”    
  
Hand in hand, they went further inward, to the crumbled rotunda and the smooth stone floor.  
  
“Just wait here,” Mal said.  "I’ll be right back.“  
  
She turned around to head back into the forest, but Evie caught her hand before she got too far away, tugging her in close to kiss her on the cheek.  
  
"You forgot that,” Evie smiled.  
  
“Pretty careless of me, yeah?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“…I’ll be back,” Mal said again, hurrying back in the direction of the trees before either of them could learn if the daughter of evil was physically capable of blushing.  
  
There was a dainty table and chair set here, but Evie opted to settle onto the stone flooring beneath her feet, sitting as close as she could to the edge of the water.  
  
“Wow…” she whispered to herself.  None of the adjectives she was thinking of did the lake justice.  
  
Months and months at Auradon, and still she was discovering new and untold things everyday.  Mal chiefly among them, it felt like.  
  
A rustle of leaves and a snap of a twig from the foliage, off to the side where a rocky outcropping led further into the lake and to the waterfall.  Evie frowned.  What did Mal forget?  She turned her head to glance over her shoulder and ask, only it wasn’t Mal.  
  
“Ben!!” she exclaimed, jumping to her feet.  
  
“Evie!  Thought I heard a voice.”  
  
Ben emerged from the trees with a very official looking blue and gold binder, which he set down on the table to come forward and hug Evie.  
  
“No one’s seen you around for two weeks, where have you been?” she asked, letting him go.  
  
“Camelot, meeting with King Arthur.  So glad to be back, by the way, my phone died the second day there,” he laughed.  
  
"Oh yeah, King Arthur’s not into this whole new-fangled technology thing, is he?  Merlin’s been to the future, you’d think they would’ve seen it coming.”  
  
“You’d definitely think there’d be some leeway. So what are you doing here??  I didn’t even know you knew where this place was.”  
  
“Mal brought me,” Evie said.  
  
Ben’s innocent eyes shone.  
  
“Mal’s here?  Where is she?” he looked around.  
  
“Wandered off into the woods.  But she’s coming right back.”  
  
“I’ve been so busy lately, it feels like I haven’t seen her in forever.  It’ll be nice to say hi,” Ben smiled.  
  
Evie couldn’t help but smile too.  
  
Oh, it had been so long since she’d fallen in love with her best friend.  She understood now that it started way back when, when Mal would praise her talents, her intelligence, the way her mother always told her that a prince would praise her looks.  When Mal praised her beauty  _last_  but certainly not least, when Mal made it clear that she had never once seen her as just a pretty face with nothing underneath.  
  
But Mal had ended up with Ben, and Evie wasn’t even capable of feeling anger, or envy, or relief when Mal broke it off the first time to run away to The Isle.  Whatever made Mal happy.  That’s what Evie was content with.  And Ben, even if it was only for a short period, had made her happy.  
  
So Ben was, and always would be, a friend.  
  
“What are  _you_ doing here?” Evie asked, eyes gazing over the binder with the Auradon crest proudly emblazoned on the front.  
  
“Oh,” Ben followed her line of sight.  "I thought I’d work here for a little bit.  I get tired of being in the office all the time, you know?“  
  
"Yeah…” Evie’s smile started to fall.    
  
Friend or no friend, she wasn’t particularly thrilled at the thought of having Ben hanging around during her date with Mal.  
  
“Um…Ben,” she cautiously started.  "I know you got here first, and I really hate to ask, but Mal and I are here together, so…“  
  
"Yeah?” Ben innocently prodded, wondering where Evie was going with this.  
  
“…We were wanting to be alone.”  
  
“Oh, it’s no problem.  I’ll be further out on the lake, by the waterfall.  You won’t even know that I’m here,” he grinned.  
  
Hoo boy.  
  
“No, when I said Mal and I are here together, I meant here _together_.”  
  
Ben frowned, utterly lost.  
  
“Yeah, I know.”  
  
Uh oh.  He really didn’t.  
  
The realization dawned on Evie like the sparkling sunlight streaming in from above.  Word may travel fast at Auradon Prep, but Ben was king, and moved too quickly and too often to be caught by gossip.  
  
“I mean that Mal and I are here on a date, Ben,” Evie felt like her words tumbled out all at once even though she said them cooly and calmly.  
  
The smile was wiped from Ben’s face like a light switching off, even more confusion filling in.  
  
“…You and Mal?” he repeated, a little dazed.  “…Are on a date?  You’re dating?”  
  
Evie nodded.  
  
Ben’s eyebrows furrowed like she’d just started speaking Woodland Creature.  
  
“But…she’s your best friend.”  
  
“Isn’t that what one usually looks for in a girlfriend?” Evie laughed shyly.

Ben eyed the chairs beside him like he was contemplating dropping dramatically into one.  
  
“…When did this happen?”  
  
“Kind of all at once, to be honest.  It’s only been a week, but it feels like so much longer,” Evie said brightly.  
  
“…Being with Mal has that effect on you.”  
  
He looked so lost, like he was a small child again and someone had just told him there’d be no birthday presents this year.  He focused his attention out across the lake for a moment, then around to the trees.  
  
“…This was our spot,” he quietly said.  
  
“Hm?”  
  
“This was our spot!!” Ben suddenly snapped, voice rising.  "How could she come here with you?!“   
  
Any other place, in any other instant, Evie might have been startled, but not here, and not now.  
  
”…What is that supposed to mean?“ her eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly.  
  
Ben ran a distraught hand through his hair, turning from Evie slightly.  
  
"I really thought I meant something to her,” he said.  
  
“You did mean a lot to her.  But you admitted it yourself, the two of you just drifted apart.  Ben, it happens.”  
  
“…Or maybe you happened,” Ben growled, locking a glare on Evie.  
  
That look, that fierce menace contorting the king’s face, Evie had never, ever seen that on the gentle boy before.  
  
Correction: just one other time.  
  
On a ship, spelled by the daughter of a sea witch.  
  
“…What’s wrong with you?” Evie cautiously prodded.  
  
“I loved Mal, Evie.”  
  
“I know that.”  
  
“No you don’t!!” Ben lurched towards her, Evie daintily took a step back.  "Mal was the greatest thing that ever happened to me!!  I wasn’t enough for her, fine, alright, but what?  You just suddenly are??“  
  
This wasn’t right, the fire in Ben’s eyes.  
  
”…Who was with you when you went to Camelot?  The royal guard?“  
  
"Don’t change the subject!!  
  
Another lurch in Evie’s direction, Ben’s fingers curling into fists.  
  
"Ben, I need you to think,” Evie firmly and calmly told him.  "When and where were you left completely alone and unguarded?“  
  
This was magic, magic touching something buried deep within Ben.  
  
"I never should’ve trusted the daughter of the Evil Queen…and you never should have taken Mal away from me.”  
  
Evie froze in fear just then, losing her composed demeanor as the promise of a threat hung heavily in the air and Ben’s normally soft eyes continued to darken.  
  
As she suddenly remembered just what kind of a something was buried deep within Ben.  
  
Mal regretted not paying more attention when she hid the picnic basket before bringing Evie to the lake, because every tree looked the same and boy did she not have the patience for this.  But she eventually stumbled across it (swearing on her life that that was  _not_ where she left it) and started back through the forest to return to Evie.  She was already halfway there when she heard it; the familiar and almost comical roar of a boy who took calling upon his inner strength far too seriously, whether it was bravely charging at a sorceress or calming a monstrous sea battle before it could spiral to epic proportions.  But this time, the sound was different.  What started out as familiar and comical melded into foreign and savage, a sheer animalistic roar of power and danger that literally startled the birds from the trees and sent them flying out frantically over Mal’s head.  
  
“Ben??” she said to herself.  And before the one lone syllable had fully made it past her lips, she realized.  "…Evie.“  
  
The picnic basket slipped from her fingers and the forest whipped by when she broke into a run.  Halfway there wasn’t good enough.  
  
"Evie!!” she burst from the trees, almost tripping over the uneven rocks before the rotunda as she all but skidded to a stop.  
  
Even for her, it was a lot to take in in such a short, frantic second of time.  
  
Evie, fearfully pressed back against one of the ruined stone columns, so cornered, so trapped.  Too close for comfort across from her, a sight Mal had been familiar with even before ever coming to Auradon.      
  
Viciously baring its fangs, razor sharp ones; its massive paws with killer claws for the feast.  
  
A hulking form, towering over Evie.  A hulking form, belonging to the Beast.  
  
“Evie!!” Mal called out again, seeing how the Beast’s body curled inwards, ready to spring forth and attack.  
  
Ben’s head turned to her at the sound of her voice.  Those fangs glinted wickedly in the sunlight, as if made of steel.  
  
“Mal…” his voice as the Beast was low, guttural, sounding nothing like Ben and everything of his father.  
  
Mal was careful as she raised a hand in warning.  From where she stood she was too far from Evie, too far from Ben, too far to intervene should something go sideways.  
  
“…Ben, leave her alone,” she firmly told him, inching her feet forward as little as she could with each step.  
  
“Her??  Why her?!” the Beast demanded.  
  
Mal couldn’t even believe this was really Ben.  
  
“What about me, Mal?!” he raised a hand too, showing off his claws.   
  
“What about you??  Ben, I am with Evie now.  You and I didn’t work out, for  _so_  many different reasons.  You made your peace with that!”  
  
“And why do you two get to work out?!” Ben swung a beastly arm in Evie’s direction.  "Why do the villains get the happily ever after?!  
  
“Ben…” Evie whispered.  
  
The Beast could hear her just fine, swiveled his tufty ears and tore his attention from Mal to her.  
  
“…I am the ruler of Auradon, a kingdom of heroes.  What do the heroes do, Mal?  …They defeat the villains.”  
  
Ben dropped on all fours, muscles tensed to leap forward and charge.  
  
Then Mal’s entire world flashed vivid green, and became swallowed up in a plume of purple.  
  
It was too crowded for her to take flight when the smoke cleared, the trees too thick and too close for her to get airborne, so fire it was.  A warning shot, a river of flames skirting by just close enough to maybe singe some fur.  And then she bared her own teeth; Ben’s may have been razors, but hers were swords.  
  
The Beast faltered just the slightest, having hunkered away when Mal’s fire shot past.  In spite of his words, she didn’t remotely want to fight him, he was outsized and outmatched—but if the decision was between hurting Ben and allowing Evie to get hurt, Mal knew which choice she was going to make.  
  
_Don’t do this, Ben…please don’t do this…_  
  
Mal’s pleas were voiced in a rattling rumble deep within her throat.  
  
“Mal!”  
  
Mal didn’t swing her head, didn’t dare take her slitted emerald eyes off the Beast, but Evie knew she was listening.  
  
“Mal, it’s a curse!  A spell brought out the Beast!”  
  
_…A spell._  
  
Although too large to fully fit within the ruins, Mal was still the only thing standing between Ben and Evie, and Mal could see Ben snarling and shifting on his clawed feet, gauging just how and where he could get a chance to dart past the dragon.  Yet he didn’t need to run past, because Mal came to him.  With her own monstrous roar her steps shook the ground, carrying her forward to butt her head into the Beast, to shove him off the stone and into the Enchanted Lake to wash away the magic twisting his mind.  The dragon’s head alone was bigger than the entire Beast, but even still Ben was stronger than she thought, digging his heels in and pushing back.  He slipped a little, centimeter by centimeter, fighting against Mal and sliding closer and closer to the water.  Just a little bit more…  
  
At the last second, the Beast ducked away from Mal and sprinted around her, racing straight for Evie with growls and huffs.  
  
Before Evie could even run herself, tear herself away from the pillar and take cover, Mal was there.  Her serpentine tail cracked like a whip, catching Ben hard in his chest and swatting him away.  He crashed into a tree trunk on the edge of the forest, wild eyes mad with beastly rage.  
  
“Ben, you know this isn’t you,” Evie tried to tell him, moving around from behind Mal.  "And  _we_  know it isn’t you.  This is magic, and we can help you break it.“  
  
The Beast’s huge head slowly shook back and forth.  
  
”…Villains never win, Evie.“  
  
Ben moved with lightning speed just then, racing into the cover of the trees and disappearing within the forest.  
  
Mal could feel her heart booming in her chest from the sudden surge of adrenaline.  
  
Evie’s heart thudded too, and she waited until the sounds of the Beast in the woods faded away entirely before she let out an enormous sigh she didn’t even know she was holding.  
  
"M…” she said, looking up at the dragon.  
  
The ruins went up in a cloud of purple smoke again, and there was Mal, back to her normal self.  
  
“…E.”  
  
Mal rushed over, hands around Evie’s waist, twisting her and turning her to see how she held up.  
  
“Are you okay??” Mal demanded.  
  
Evie nodded.  
  
“I’m okay,” she took both of Mal’s hands to stop them from worriedly fluttering around.  
  
“And Ben?”  
  
Evie looked past Mal, into the dark shroud of the forest.  
  
“He’s been spelled, Mal.  That wasn’t him.”  
  
“No, it wasn’t,” Mal agreed.  
  
“He said he came back from a trip to Camelot…something must have happened to him there.”  
  
“…We’ll find him,” Mal’s gaze joined Evie’s as well, staring intently into the trees like they themselves would reveal Ben.  "I doubt the King of Auradon can get far on those giant hairy feet of his.  We’ll get his parents, and Fairy Godmother, and—"  
  
“And Lonnie wouldn’t be a crazy suggestion,” Evie said with a nervous chuckle, afraid to think of Ben in such trouble.  
  
“Looks like a raincheck on our date, Evie.  I’m sorry.”  
  
But Evie’s eyes sparkled dazzlingly just then.  
  
“…You came running,” she said in awe, her smile soft and beautiful.  
  
“…Of course I did.”  
  
Evie threaded her fingers through the ends of Mal’s hair.  
  
“Of course I came running, Evie,” Mal closed her eyes for a second and relished her touch.    
  
“…Auradon sure is some place, Mal.  Your king turned out to be a beast, and my prince turned out to be a princess, who then secretly ended up turning out to be a dragon,” Evie chuckled.  "Honestly?  The hardest part to believe is that I’ve got a dragon as my own personal bodyguard now.“  
  
"Come on, E.  You know the fairytales just as well as I do.”  
  
A soft kiss, a light brush against the nose, Evie’s arms around her waist, Mal leaning into the crook of her neck and closing her eyes once more.  
  
“…A dragon always protects her princess.”


End file.
